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Appeals court in DC sets stage for October 5 #NoDAPL hearing

Thursday, September 22, 2016

The E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse houses both the federal court for the District of Columbia and the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Photo by Indianz.Com / Available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The stage is set for a crucial hearing in the #NoDAPL lawsuit.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has already placed an administrative injunction on the Dakota Access Pipeline. The order blocks construction in a critical area of North Dakota.

To determine whether a more permanent injunction is warranted, if at all, a panel of three judges will hear the dispute on October 5 in Washington, D.C. An order issued on Thursday calls for arguments to be divided between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Dakota Access partnership.

As the plaintiff in the case, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will get 15 minutes, according to the order. The Army Corps, the defendant, and Dakota Access, which intervened as a defendant, are sharing their 15 minutes, with the government getting 10 minutes and Dakota Access getting 5 minutes.

Although the court has only allotted 30 minutes for arguments, high-profile cases tend to go longer. A land-into-trust hearing in April, for example, went for nearly an hour, or twice as long as allotted.

According to the court's calendar, the hearing is the only one on the schedule for October 5 so the judges would have plenty of wiggle room for arguments. Audio will be posted by the court later in the day.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order on September 22, 2016, allocating oral argument time in the #NoDAPL case. The hearing itself takes place on October 5, 2016.

The hearing will take place in Courtroom 31 of the federal courthouse. That's the same room that was used in April and it tends to fill up quickly. A few dozen were present for that hearing.

In the past, the D.C. Circuit has utilized a larger room for arguments. That's what happened when about a hundred people or so showed up for an appeal in the Cobell trust fund lawsuit back in April 2006.

The #NoDAPL case is being handled by a panel of three judges: Janice Rogers Brown, Thomas B. Griffith and Cornelia T.L. Pillard. Regardless of the way they rule on the request for a more permanent injunction, the tribe will still be able to proceed with its appeal, meaning additional briefs and possibly another hearing are still on the horizon.

But for now, the court is only considering the briefs that were filed in connection with the tribe's request for the injunction.

The appeals process, in general, is not known for moving quickly. The D.C. Circuit's decision to impose an administrative injunction and schedule a hearing solely on the injunction is all but unheard of in any case involving tribal interests.

Incidentally, an injunction was also requested in the land-into-trust case, but it went ignored, and the D.C. Circuit ended up delivering a huge victory for the Cowlitz Tribe in July. The panel on that case included Judge Pillard, who appeared to be well versed in Indian law and history despite her relatively short time on the court. She was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama.

Brown and Griffith were nominated by former president George W. Bush. Within three years of joining the court, Brown generated a strong anti-tribal record, according to a 2008 review of her writings by Indianz.Com.

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals #NoDAPL Documents:
Injunction Blocking Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline (September 16, 2016)
Order Setting October 5 Hearing (September 21, 2016)
Order Allocating Oral Argument Time (September 21, 2016)